Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Dash
What the actual fuck was I thinking?
I shouldn’t have kissed Stormi.
I sure as hell shouldn’t have tackled her onto the bed and started living out one of my many growing fantasies about her in real time.
She’s not just some woman in a bar who’s only looking for a one-night stand.
She’s an incredibly rare gem, and I won’t fucking tarnish her shine by giving into my base desires.
I know fucking better than this. The last time I acted on impulse, it cost me everything. I swore I’d never go down this road again. Not for a woman. Not for anyone.
“Fucking Brutus,” I grumble, hurrying down the stairs.
The spike of adrenaline had me blind to reason, but not anymore.
If I’m going to be stuck with Stormi until morning, I’m keeping my fucking head on straight and hands off of her.
My dick throbs, as though arguing with me.
Guess I’ll have to wait one more night to jack off.
Unless you let Stormi drain your cock down the back of her throat.
I groan, wishing like hell I could escape this tower that will no doubt be my prison for the next several hours. But with a storm on the horizon, I have to keep watch.
After thoroughly scanning the ground level area for any signs of Brutus, I collect the firewood I tossed aside earlier.
Scattered raindrops fall more steadily, and gentle thunder rolls closer than is comforting.
If the storm wasn’t on my fucking doorstep, I’d take a few beats to get my wits about me.
When I return upstairs, Stormi has pulled down the map from where I can keep it stored and is studying it. The offending yellow jacket is back on, and she’s hugging herself tight. Blaze sits at her feet, looking back over his shoulder at me with what I can only describe as a glare pointed at me.
Great. My dog likes her better than me.
“Looking for something in particular?” I ask, attending to the wood stove.
“My escape route.”
I snap my head toward her, but her back’s facing me. Her irritation is understandable, but I’m not going back on what I said. What happened earlier was a mistake, and if I be anything but an asshole about that, I’ll cave quicker than lightning can strike.
Instead, I switch to my Tour Guide Dash mode and put her to work. “Can you do me a favor and watch for lightning strikes so I can get the stove lit?”
“You want me to watch for fires?”
“Just for a few minutes, so I can get the stove going. Blaze is shivering.”
She doesn’t say anything, but she sits back on the edge of my bed, scanning the three-sixty perimeter as my traitorous dog curls up beside her. He’s going to be heartbroken when that chopper shows up tomorrow.
Me too, buddy.
“Where are you from, Stormi?” I ask, again channeling Tour Guide Dash.
We’re mostly due for heavy rain and strong winds, so I’m not as worried about lightning unless a thunderstorm pops up.
Keeping her busy and talking, though, could ease the strained tension between us.
Something I feel desperate to fix, despite all the logical reasons to allow that tension to keep the barrier firmly in place between us.
“Some place I really don’t want to go back to,” she mumbles.
“What’s that?”
“Omaha.”
“City girl then?”
“Not by choice.” Another mumbled answer, as though her words aren’t intended for me.
I concentrate on starting a fire inside the stove with the shreds of fire starter I’ve collected, but I’m having trouble getting the flame to take. At this rate, the storm will be fucking over before I get the fire going.
“Are you from here?” she asks.
“Born and raised.”
“Winnie said you were a smokejumper.”
“I was.” I keep my answer short because I don’t trust myself to stick to the Tour Guide Dash version of that story. Thankfully, the flame finally takes. I throw in another question to redirect the conversation back to Stormi. “Where would you live, if you could live anywhere?”
“I thought some place like this,” she says, and this time I hear a tremble in her voice. “Now, I don’t know.”
“Why not here?”
“Because it’s one thing to joke about being a bear snack. It’s another thing to face the very real possibility of being one.”
I stiffen at the sound of sniffles, feeling like a giant asshole. That make out session was obviously fueled by adrenaline. But now that we’re both down from that high, the real emotions are settling in. And Stormi is…scared.
“Hey,” I say, tossing in a couple of logs into the stove and closing the door.
I start toward the bed but think better of it before I make it all the way to her.
I stop instead at the table stationed in the center of the tower so I can watch the weather like I’m supposed to be doing.
“If it makes you feel any better, that’s not my first encounter with Brutus. ”
“It’s not?”
“Not even my third. You’re safe, Stormi. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you.”
“Just ignore me,” she says, a pitiful laugh mixing with another sniffle. “That’s what everyone else does.”
She doesn’t mean for me to hear the whispered second part, but the words fuel a different type of fire inside me.
I get the distinct sense that Stormi Winters is a helluva woman, and I want to know who the fuck broke her spirit so I can handle them myself. Still, I try to mask the possessive, primal feelings with humor. “You’re kind of hard to ignore in that sunshine colored jacket.”
She sputters a laugh.
“Tell me about your life,” I say, hoping my tone is more encouraging and less off putting for a change.
“Well, until earlier this week, I was a paralegal.”
“What happened earlier this week?”
“My boss demanded I work this weekend while he vacationed in Panama and I missed out on my sister’s bachelorette weekend. And I told him to go directly to hell. To not pass go or collect his two hundred dollars.”
I’m filled with unexpected pride. I knew she was strong, but I like that it’s with a touch of badass.
“You really said that?”
“Yeah. And some other pretty…colorful things.”
“Good.”
“Yeah?”
“Hell yeah.”
Our gazes lock across the room, and the overwhelming temptation to leave my station and go to her comes over me.
For a single beat, I consider throwing caution to the wind.
Letting my guard down for one night to see where this might lead.
Stormi Winters might damn well be my future, if only I gave us the chance to explore this.
“You don’t strike me as the behind the desk type,” I say instead, keeping my feet rooted in place.
“I’m not,” she says, running her fingers along the blue streak in her braid.
“So why were you working as a paralegal?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I think we have time for one of those,” I offer, realizing I mean it. Probably because all I’ve wanted to do since the moment I first heard Stormi open her mouth is learn everything about her.
“I wanted to make my dad proud.”
I wait for her to continue, but instead, she busies herself rubbing her fingers over Blaze’s head like he likes. His eyes have fallen shut, and I’m pretty sure he’s smiling.
“That doesn’t sound like a long story,” I say.
“My dad’s a lawyer. He wanted one of his daughters to go to law school. After the divorce, I thought it was a way to stay close to him.” She pinches her lips, lifting her gaze to the rain-streaked windows to the east. “Let’s just say it’s the only thing we have—had—in common. And now…”
“And now?”
“My family’s…complicated.”
“They wouldn’t be proud of you for standing your ground?”
“I’m the whimsical one with no grounding in reality.
The witchy one obsessed with crystals, overly sensitive to everything, and convinced things work themselves out if only we stop trying to force them.
It’s the exact opposite of how they all live their lives.
I’m the free spirit with no plan. That’s how they see me—my dad, my mom, my stepmom, my sister—there’s a reason she didn’t ask me to be her maid of honor.
This practical job kept them from forming an intervention.
They’ll see me quitting as a reason to be concerned, especially because I have no savings and no backup plan. ”
“Stormi—”
“I’m sorry I attacked you,” Stormi says, smiling as she wipes the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands. It’s a forced smile, but a clear indication that she’s ready to move on from the conversation, and I respect her wishes.
“I’d much rather be attacked by you than Brutus.”
This time when our eyes catch and lock, there’s heat that the woodstove can’t take credit for.
My cock starts to harden again.
I want her.
I need her.
And I haven’t allowed myself to need anybody for a long damn time.
But it’s the thought of her leaving in the morning that keeps my feet rooted in place and my eyes scanning the mountains. Because Stormi Winters doesn’t seem like the kind of woman I could ravage for a night and live without every night after.
I want her.
And if I give in, I know I’ll want her…always.